In Memory of Steve....

Today is the second anniversary of Steve's death. His family printed a poem written by him as a memorial in The Courier News. Below is the poem...one I had seen in many drafts during the time he wrote it. I share it with you and all of the poet friends who knew him.

BLOOD COUNT
(Upon diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma)

By Steven Worowski, March 7, 2006


I was ten years old on a hill slope sled
To cut the thread my penknife slipped
Rust drops became red spots
In white snow from dirty gloved
Squeezed covered thumb
All the way home, raw, hidden, one inch deep
For the sake of a sled left behind
In the fleshy red emergency.
Same year; 1962, Cub Scout Den Mother
Also my birth mother
And nine other boys.
2 causasian, Nick and me.
7 black boys then called "negros"
Greg Vanderveer smacked in the nose
By Tommy Richardson's basketball
Wide brown nostrils became slowly
Flowing crimson spigots.
Our den mother soaked both of her handkerchiefs
Fresh clean, now white, ent brown skin dyed
Summertime scarlett in an instant
1962 - 10 years after the Manhattan Project
Uranium test soil dump site here.
Our unofficial playground
The sun had set in Nevada.
It has set on Bikini Island
In Hiroshima, In Nagasaki.
In tons of soil here remained
Hundreds of pound of memory
With Scarlet life heated just under the sun.
A dull cut. My mother now safe and dead.
Never racist, a miracle she was for that in those years.
1988 - Soil removed in sealed cement bunkers
Dropped 40 miles in North Atlantic Ocean,
Half forgotten, never gone.
There now for future generations
Of Greenland fisheries to
Pull away from their sleds.
Half forgotten, never gone, though some
Of the negro kids are.
Gone skin-popped first, then died watching
ebbs and flows in cool Syringes like
Seasons changing in steely moments
Instead if monotonous grey months.
and now, maybe me - 21st Century Man
With a sample cup to pee in
And still for the sake of a sled.
I bring my bandage to my mother's ghost
in the night. She sighs.
She kisses my forehead.
She whispers I will be alright.
A tumor. A late bloomer. A rumor
The negro kids look up.
Has the Manhattan Project conspired with my spine?

KATE GOSSLEIN FORCED TO NJ SALON

(Author's Note...as a fan of both "The Onion" and "The Jersey Backup," and in that vein, this is my tongue-in-cheek response to reality shows and the tabloids...and...uh...meaning no disrespect)


Kate Gosslein, the sharp tongued Mom of Jon and Kate Plus Eight, was whisked to a Hair Salon in Phillipsburg last Wednesday after learning that the entire state of Pennsylvania was temporarily out of hair bleach. It is rumored that over the course of the past year and a half, Kate has spent hours each day having her ever expanding highlights touched up, and the beauty supply warehouses have not been able to keep up with the demand.

Misty LaRue, proprietor of Misty’s Magic Fingers Massage and Hair Salon, worked on Kate personally. “She had her cell phone on speaker the whole time.” said the native born Phillipsburgian. “Even when we had her head in the sink she was yelling at her lawyer. She said that she gave birth to 8 kids, so she’s entitled to eight-tenths of everything. I think she also said something about getting Jon’s left lung and his hair plugs, but don’t quote me on that.”

Mabel Clarsidge was a client in the salon at the time. “I was under the hair dryer so I couldn’t hear, but I saw Kate grab a rat-tail comb and hold it under Misty’s throat. I don’t know what it was all about, but shortly afterwards a kid ran in from Starbucks with a grande frappuccino.”

Mel Stracher, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Association of Beauticians, contacted the media to add his comments to the growing Jon and Kate debacle. “Kate is a selfish woman,” he said in a Philadelphia newscast interview, “She apparently does not care if other people have to walk around with dark roots showing. Every salon in the state has a waiting list of furious women who cannot get a touch up because of Kate. She has a limo to drive her over state lines. She doesn’t have to pump her own gas to get her tummy-tucked-shrunken-rear-end over to Jersey, but what about the average Jane?” He shook his head in disgust. “We’re doing our best to get bleach from other states, but the demand is always high, even in the current economy. However, we have formed a coalition which will severely limit Kate Gosslein’s future access to it in Pennsylvania. Let Jersey have her and good riddance.”

In related stories, WalMarts across Pennsylvania are reporting that they have been wiped out of women’s hats and head scarves, and local police report responding to numerous complaints by grandmothers having babushkas snatched from their heads.

Tiferet has graciously included my poem "Directory Assistance" on their website as an excerpt from issue 9. The website is http://tiferetjournal.com/writings/poetry/ Tiferet is a beautiful publication of poetry, non-fiction, drama, fiction and art (copies can be obtained through the website) and I am honored to have been selected to be part of the current issue. Many thanks again to the editors for choosing the poem, and I hope you'll read the other fine examples from Tiferet's pages as well.

YOGA DREAMS

I have three friends who practice Yoga. They are toned. Not one of them has that older arm thing going on where the under part of your upper arm is capable of waving faster than your hand. They swear it has made their allergies better, improved physical strength, and charged their mental and spiritual circuits. I'm all for it, but not willing to take a class after my long ago "get in shape by joining Ballys" embarrassment. I went four times, and paid the membership fee monthly for the next two years. Ten years later they are still after me to re-join so I don't let my "pledge to fitness" falter. They're wasting their postage. My 'pledge' passed falter and took a nose dive many moons ago.

So, I bought a couple of books on Yoga. I'm smart. I comprehend and retain what I read. There were detailed illustrations. I figured it would be easy. The thing is, you have to lay down on the floor. Or sit in one position and look straight ahead. Or go from one position to the next in one fluid movement. It is impossible to look at illustrations in a book and do any of the above at the same time. The book has to be propped up and its pages turned and the pictures are not that big. This leads to very un-yoga-like contortions and many un-yoga-like thoughts.

So, I bought a Yoga DVD. I figured verbal instruction and a screen for demonstration was the way to go. Dixie Carter, that sassy sister from "Designing Women" was the instructor. I choose her from the others offered because she is older than I am. I thought she would have mercy on my joints and muscles. I thought she would be as gentle as her charming southern drawl. I thought we would do this one grandmother to another.

The breathing went well. It felt pretty good. Sitting in the first position was good too. She smiled a lot on the screen. Yep, Dixie was my yoga guru.

Then we actually started to move. Well, she moved. I winced and tried to follow along. I toppled more than most toddlers I've known. There was nothing 'fluid' about any of my movements...except my regret about the six cups of coffee I had for energy before we started. You know that thing called "salute to the sun?" It takes more strength and muscle than, oh say, giving birth. Dixie kept smiling. I gritted my teeth and growled.

At the end of the session, Miss Dixie does this relaxation thing. You lay down and she goes through a series of images and finally instructs you to let all the pain rise up and out of your body. So I lifted up my leg and used my foot to turn off the TV.

AND THEN THERE WAS BILLY BLANKS....

Before Miss Dixie and I parted our yoga trial ways, I had a brief fitness affair with Billy Blanks and his Tae Bo 'revolution.' In a moment of weakness and disgust at my so very out of shape muscles, I ordered his three video tape set.

I remember the moment. It was a Saturday morning, I was alone and lounging on the sofa drinking my third or fourth cup of coffee, reading a book with the TV blabbing in the background . There was Billy in his infomercial, with a bevy of toned and energetic folks Tae Bo-ing right along with him. Maybe it was the music, maybe it was that Billy was all oiled and muscular and looked pretty damn good, or maybe I was just shaking so much from the caffeine that my mind had rattled loose...but I watched the whole thing, reached for my credit card and the deal was done.

The tapes arrived and I put them on top of the VCR (this was pre-DVD). I dusted the package regularly, and occasionally moved it to the right or left for variety. Two years of Saturday morning sofa lounging went by. Once in a while, someone would say something like, "Oh, you still have those Tae Bo tapes," to which I would answer, "Uh huh."

Along about the time those tapes celebrated their second birthday in my house, my son, who had yet to fully understand what not to say to the women in his life, came upon me in my usual position...feet up, expending only enough energy to turn the pages of the book in my hand. He walked over to the VCR, picked up the tapes and said, "You have to break the shrink wrap on these things for them to work. Did you know that?"

It is really annoying when your kid is correct. But I decided it was time, ripped off the plastic and read the little instruction sheet I found tucked between the tapes. There was a beginner tape, a more advanced tape, and an instructional tape. My buddy Billy strongly suggested that I begin with the instructional tape. "Watch it all the way through," he stressed, "before attempting the other tapes." I looked at Billy and his buff crew on the cover, looked down at my middle aged self, and decided to take his advice.

I lasted about twenty minutes, but it was an interesting twenty minutes. I learned how to stand, throw a punch straight out without dislocating my shoulder, and kick my leg. All while standing still.

Then Billy turned on the music and coaxed us to start moving, very slowly, very gently. All his buddies were bobbing and punching...Billy was flexing and dancing a little boxing two step...I was panting and sweating, feeling a little nauseous, and convinced that I was born with all my muscles in the wrong place. I had to sit down, drink water, put a cool cloth on my head.

In short, I failed the instruction tape.

No one has mentioned Tae Bo to me since. If they noticed the tapes had disappeared, my family kept it to themselves. I'm sticking to my 'Sweatin' to the Oldies' old and yellowing, videotape. I like the ordinary people huffing and puffing around Richard Simmons. I like that he makes you stop and measure your heart rate so that your family won't find you fit as a fiddle and dead on the carpet. I love all that music from my youth. And I love that in spite of himself, Richard always looks just a little bit pudgy.